Creating Atomic Habits [PPP #150]

In this episode of the Profitable Practice Podcast I am breaking down how you can create habits that stick and actually become the person that you want to be every single day in your personal life and in your business. Stay tuned.

Hello and welcome to the profitable practice podcast with me, Andrea Maxim. A Naturopathic Doctor Healthpreneur. Every week, I’m bringing you no-nonsense, no BS actionable strategies to create a practice that is not only profitable but fully sustainable by you. If you’re an action taker like me and want to create a practice that is profitable, then you’ve come to the right place!

Hey guys! It’s your host, Andrea Maxim here. And I’m going to book bomb you today about a fantastic book that I just listened to and if you heard me speak on this podcast before, I will never read another book. I buy them, I love buying books but I will never actually read them the thought of sitting down and reading a paragraph already gives me a squirrel syndrome. So audible has become an absolute best friend. So here is the book that I think is a fantastic read for you to listen to and I will read it if you’re so inclined and that is the book “Atomic Habits”. So at the very beginning when everybody is shutting down, one of the pieces that I told everybody that you need to be doing and this is coming from my mentor, Alex Sharkfin, while we are working together and that was about establishing a routine. Always having some semblance of a routine will always keep you in momentum and make you feel like you are accomplishing something that everything is kind of an automate and autopilot. And I mean that’s kind of a goal all of us as Healthpreneurs and entrepreneurs have is how can we get to that place of automation with our brain with our thinking with our business runs that is the entire pillar to of the Maximize Practitioner Program and all of that business essentials. Where we just try to put as much of our business on to automate and simplify all of the funnel steps in blablabla as much as we can but the same thing goes for how we operate as humans are we want to have this amazing habits, we want to wake up early, we want to journal as soon as we wake up and it makes us feel really connected and grounded and open for the day and then we want to crush our day and get all you know two hundred things done off of our to do list in five hours because we think that’s possible and then show up and make the most beautiful healthy dinner for your family, read books and watch movies with our kids, go to bed at a decent hour of course exercise is somewhere in there, you know have all the amazing sex every single night and then go to sleep and then rinse and repeat. That’s kind of the ideal lifestyle that perhaps some of us are trying to attain there are certain aspects of truth to what I just said there. You pick and choose what they are. But Atomic Habits I thought was a fantastic read and here’s why, I am so tired of investing in people that tell me how I can get more stuff done? How I can be way more productive? How if I just incorporate and activity journal or get a new planner or get a laminated sheet that I can write all of my goals out on for the day and for the week and for the month and all of that while absolutely that provokes productivity. What it really comes down to and I love what James Clear talks about in his book, Atomic Habits is you will never be able to maintain a habit until you become that habit until to your very identity that is what your habit is. And as soon as I heard that, a massive life open of for me and I immediately share them with the Maximize Practitioner Community on our monthly coaching call that I do live every month in the group because so often we try to make changes, we try to become this person instantaneously and we go all or nothing. How many of you listening right now are like nodding your hear like I’m totally an all or nothing person and I don’t go all in its never going to happen. And how often does that mentality fail you? You go all in for a day or a week or a month and then one little hiccup happens and it’s gone. So why I really love this book is at the very very core of his message around creating healthy habits. He’s also getting you to identify to what creates the identity of the person that has x,y or z habit. The best example I immediately came up with is my sister is a runner and she runs half marathons like every single day because that is her identity is someone who works out every single day no matter where she is, if she can’t go for a run she will have a day pass out of a cross-fit gym or spinning class or something like exercise is such a huge part of her identity that when we talk about how little I loved to exercise she’s just like “Well you can just do a yoga class. You can just download a video or ” but I’m like “no!” I’m not even going to entertain this conversation because it is not who I am. I will happily get up early and start working on my business or do things to advance my career way faster than I will be ever self-motivated to go to the gym. That is why I had to concede and if you listen to last week’s episode it is all about how money is an invisible entity that really does nothing for you from a physical standpoint but provides you with all of the growth you need as a human being and in your business. So with that mentality knowing that I’m full of an obligor so here’s where the asterisk comes in. Read the four tendencies by Gretchen Ruben if you haven’t already and hire a personal trainer. He is the reason I go to the gym two to three time per week because the gym has been closed I just haven’t worked out and I own that, I own everything about that and I’m so fine with that. Because it’s not part of my identity. What is part of my identity is being entirely responsible for every choice that I make for every decision that I make the way I show up to my team, the way I show up for my patients and if I lose a patient, I will take full responsibility for that unless genuinely if it was in a really bad fit. My integrity, so the integrity of my word, I struggle and beat myself up so much if I don’t do what I’m going to say what I’m going to do. That is what drives me, that is what takes most of my time and that is where my identity lies. There are some people who eat healthy meals every single day and make everything from scratch and I wish I was one of those people but I’m not. I make the fastest meals that I can, we buy quality ingredients but I’m certainly not eating as healthy as I should be because that’s not my identity however coming full circle back to the book “Atomic Habits” by James Clear. He lays out some really beautiful steps for you to take to start to become that individual and there’s an entire cheat sheet that you will get access to as soon as you’ll buy the book and I don’t feel comfortable of sharing that out because you have to, I think have the link from the book in order to do that but if I am able to then I will show that in the show notes for sure but pulls notes I will lay it all out. One is a two-minute rule which I really love because everyone can say “Oh yea! Two minutes I can do that” and you have to start a habit tracker where you say “Okay, my habit of getting up early is…” well that’s a really bad one for two minutes, my habit of going for a walk every day is I’m just going to put on my shoes and get my water bottle and at the end of the two minutes I’m not out the door then I’m just going back and sit on the couch but every single day you show up for that habit and you do it for two minutes. If it’s opening up or if it’s starting journaling is what you want to start then every morning you’re going to wake up, you’re going to open up that journal and if you write nothing other than today is Wednesday and it takes you two minutes to come up with that then that what you do for two minutes but what happens is the more often you show up for those two minutes then eventually you’re going to get into the swing. So then one day you might have journaled like ten minutes you’re just like totally in the zone and everything will just like a line for you, and that’s awesome! There might be a day where you keep showing up to the gym and you only show up for two minutes, you show up and say hi to everybody you know fill up your water bottle and go home. And then eventually well there is a class starting so I’m just to the class. And then eventually you start to become that person who shows up to the gym every day, who journals every day, who chops food every single day and you’re only allowed to chop food for just two minutes before you have to put the knife down, whatever the goal may be. So once you’ve gotten past the two-minute rule and you’ve tracked everything in a legit habit tracker where you are crossing off the squares for every single day that you are showing up then you can never miss more than twice. So you can have a bad day where you don’t blog, you don’t show up for life, you don’t go for a walk, you don’t journal but you have to get back on the wagon the next day and so by doing that it gives a little bit of grace but then are also brings you right back with the control that you need to have. And then the final one what I really like which really like kind of anchor of the whole book is the reason why you fall off of that habit is that you haven’t given it the average of the sixty-six days to cement that habit but it’s also because you’re still playing like a junior. The professionals, the pro’s, even if it’s they’re worst day even if they feel like absolute garbage will still show up for their habit and they will still do it even if its half-fast even if they like totally suck on their personal best or barely got in any reps they still showed up to the gym, they still set what they’re going to do and they still stayed in that integrity for their habits. And so, if you want to continue to play like a junior, and if you want to continue to play like someone who flip-flops about what it is that you wanted to do of who you want to become then you can still stay there but you have to take full responsibility for that. So without giving everything else away, and if you start looking upper and going to even atomichabits.com, you can find perhaps all the resources there and as I said if I can show that link in the show notes, I will for the kind of like all of the Coles notes, the take away then I will but what you first need to do is you need to get that book, you need to listen to it as I did or actually physical copy it like I never will and then start to figure out what habits you want to have for this year and beyond. And if you’re struggling to figure out which habit it is, James recommends what is the keystone habits that if it’s the first one that you do it makes an impact on everything else that you do that day. And so for me, I think journaling would be my keystone habit because it sets me up, it puts me into gratitude, it lets me think about what I want to address with my team, it lets me think about what it is that I want to do for the day, it forces me to look at my air table weekly calendar to see if I’m getting my thirty-day goals done, you know it just opens up all of that business stuff but always remember my identity first is always about integrity and showing up for my business. For you maybe it’s healthy eating maybe when you eat healthily that’s when you show up as your best self to everybody to everything. For you maybe it’s going to bed early because when you get a good night’s sleep you wake up refresh and therefore you’re not cranky and irritable and just someone that people just don’t want to be around. Whatever that keystone has it is that’s where you start. So your first task when this podcast is over is to download the book and I will put a hyperlink to the Atomic Habits book in the show notes and I would love to hear what your keystone habit is. Reach out to me @AndreaMaximND on Instagram and let me know what it is that you are going to commit that you’re doing from now and beyond and what you’re going to become a professional in doing. And then of course if one of the struggles is lack of time is it is for everybody. I want you to book a game plan call with me. That game plan call will allow me to see where the frustrations, where the blockers, where the overwhelm is coming in your business, exposed them. Give you ideas of what to be implementing and if I and my team can get a lot of that stuff done for you so you don’t even have to do for most of your work, then that’s awesome! And if not, that’s also okay. My role here is to be a source of support for you and a rock and a sounding board if need to but you have to raise your hand and use your finger and click that link and book that appointment so that we can have an honest conversation about what your goals are for your business so I love to look forward to meeting you on camera when we have our video chat. That’s it for today! Start becoming a professional with regards to your habits crush this year and beyond. I’m Andrea Maxim and I’m out. 

You guys are killer! Thank you as always for listening to the profitable practice podcast. Leave me a comment and if you haven’t already, I would love a review on iTunes. Definitely! Subscribe to this podcast and leave me a quick review. For those ready to maximize your practice, contact me at www.maximizedbusiness.ca.